


Just One Yesterday

by theLiterator, Traxits



Series: Choke on Memories [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Darkfic, M/M, Work In Progress, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1580651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traxits/pseuds/Traxits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About half the time, his name doesn't fit, and the other half of the time, his body is wrong.  The only steady things are the memories that slip and slide through his fingers, and he wishes they were ice instead of water.  Ice never seems to leave his veins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heaven's Grief

("I look like _him_.")

"You're distracted."

"No," Steve replied slowly, his eyes focusing on the tablet in front of him. He had too many audio books to choose from, and somehow, not a single one of them covered what he wanted. He tapped his finger on the outermost edge of the tablet, where the screen wouldn't register his touch. "I'm ignoring you. There's a difference."

Natasha hummed softly, and he didn't have to move to feel her gaze on him. She spent too long looking at him now, and what was she even seeing anyway?

("You know what I see, Bucky? The same thing I always have.")

Too much. She might not have ever been frozen, but a part of her never thawed either. What had she said in the car? 'Who do you want me to be?' Steve just wished he had her ability to be so casual about the whole thing. He wished someone gave him a choice. He wished someone wanted Steve instead of Captain America.

Steve wouldn't have let go. Steve wouldn't have been on the train to let go. Steve wouldn't have been in Europe for the first Hydra base though, would he?

"Maybe," she agreed, and he felt her lean over him. She was warm against his back, her weight easy to take. His eyes slid closed as her arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders. "But I don't think you know the difference anymore."

("I want you to see what I see.")

"Maybe I never knew the difference," Steve replied, and he finally settled on the ancient world civilization course.

"Now, Steve," Natasha murmured, "that's not part of catching up."

"Sometimes I want something that doesn't immediately affect me," he said, and he stood up then, pulling out the phone she had picked out for him. It linked somehow with the tablet, and just a couple of taps had his new audio course on it.

She made another noncommittal hum, and Steve wondered how the hell she managed to make such a neutral noise sound so judging. He didn't say that part though, just slid the phone into the armband she'd given him. Another glance around and he stood up. She moved off him, and as he rifled through the papers there on the desk, she watched him, red hair in her eyes.

Then she chuckled and held up the headphones that he was looking for. He leaned over and took them with only a raised eyebrow, letting her watch him plug them in and drape them over his shoulders.

"Look at you," she said with a smile. "Positively modern, aren't you, Captain?"

He snorted as he fitted the earbuds in his ears, wrinkling his nose at the sensation. He was never going to get used to that feeling. This century. She mouthed something at him— knowing her, it was probably something like 'handsome' or something else designed to make him uncomfortable— and he turned on his heel to head out.

He normally didn't run with earbuds or headphones or anything like that. It made people nervous, and honestly, he'd gotten used to listening to the city on his runs back when Bucky had been training him before he ever got to the military.

But this city didn't sound like his old one, and while he might have gotten a little used to how New York sounded now, DC sounded different from even that. So he listened to his audio course instead, listened to some professor narrate about civilizations that were even older than him. So long as they stuck to the civilization in question and not to how they had dated these things and everything, he could pretend he was listening to a lesson back in his own time.

("No! No!" And Steve wasn't sure he'd ever heard Bucky sound like that. Scared. Like Steve was hurting him.)

That was, of course, barring the sights around him. It was easy to do given how everything blurred because once again, he was crying. He couldn't remember crying so much in his life before.

Before the serum, crying had been a luxury he couldn't afford, and after... well. After, he'd had no time. And now, for a man out of time, he had an awful lot of it on his hands.

He had stopped jogging these runs weeks ago though, no matter how much time he had. Bucky had taught him to do these runs only fast enough that he couldn't walk them, but it wasn't enough anymore. He ran outright, not top speed but definitely fast enough to outpace anyone he ended up running beside. Sam had not attempted to keep up with him since that first run, and while Steve was more than willing to slow it down to keep up with him, sometimes he needed this.

Especially when he was here in DC.

He stumbled when he saw a flash of silver, and his breath caught, but no, it was only the light glinting off some endless piece of metal and glass. His heart pounded in his chest in a way that had little to do with the run, and he swallowed as he dragged himself back to the now, to the professor talking in his ears and the steady beat of the pavement under him.

("Please don't.")

Steve's breath caught and he stumbled a second time, and this time he just stopped. He bent over a little, hands on his knees, chest heaving in attempt to prove to his body that there was air there, that there was no need for him to choke so, but nothing seemed to prove it to him. "Stupid, Rogers," he muttered, his eyes closing for a heartbeat, and his hands curved hard enough that the pressure ached in his legs. Slowly, he let go, and he bent back, looking up toward the sky. He reached up and tugged the earbuds out, let them fall down over his shoulders, and let the city crash into him.

The professor hadn't managed to drown out Bucky's voice, but then again, nothing had. Natasha was right. He was distracted.

She was wrong though. It wasn't really a distraction when it was the whole reason he was here in DC still. Sure, he stood outside of Sam's group sessions (he couldn't sit in on them; all he did was make things worse, make those soldiers feel like they had to front, had to show him what good soldiers they were, and it wasn't ego to be aware that Captain America couldn't join them, and Steve Rogers... well. Steve Rogers never had been a soldier now, had he?) but he wasn't here for those. She knew it though.

She had to.

Another glint, and he kept his eyes on the sky, on anything that wasn't the stupid light on another car mirror.

He wasn't sure what, exactly, dragged his eyes down. The weight of a too-dark gaze on him, and while he was used to being stared at by now— the intent behind the stares had changed, but even as a little guy, Steve had drawn more attention than was healthy— he wasn't used to that kind of intensity.

("You let me fall.")

There wasn't enough air. It all rushed out of Steve's lungs and his knees trembled as he saw Bucky there, straight ahead on the bridge, watching him. He still had on Steve's shirt from the other night, and if Steve had needed the proof that it had been real, there it was. Everything he could have asked for.

"Bucky," he breathed, and when he stumbled this time, it was into motion. His legs were as heavy and clumsy.

(He was Steve Rogers again, gasping as he had on that first run, when Bucky had alternated between a walk and the slowest jog Steve had ever seen. The Captain America exhibit hadn't mentioned that part of his training because no one knew besides him and Buck.)

"Buck!" And there it was, Captain America's smooth and easy stride. Bucky watched him move with the same burning intensity, and Steve was vaguely aware that his audio course was still playing. He could just barely hear it over the pounding of his heart. Bucky didn't move when Steve got to him, and he reached out, stopping with his fingertips just shy of touching Bucky's shoulder.

For one of the longest moments that Steve could remember, they just stared at each other. The only comfort was that Bucky's chest heaved with every breath just as much as Steve's did.

He swallowed, and then his fingertips touched Bucky's shoulder. The metal was as cold as he expected (cold like the mirror that Bucky had pushed him up against all those years ago). He wanted to lean in, wanted to kiss Bucky all over again.

("Please don't.")

Last time, Bucky had kissed him like he was drowning, and Steve knew how much his lungs had to burn by now. He was Captain America. It was his job to rescue people, and if he couldn't even help his best friend, what use was he?

He leaned forward and touched his forehead to Bucky's chest. He was too tall now for that to really be comfortable, but it was familiar. His hand tightened its hold on that metal shoulder under his shirt— Bucky was still wearing the one Steve had peeled off before he'd found Bucky in his closet. "Come home with me," he said. His eyes were closed. Braced.

Fingers brushed against the back of his neck, and his eyes squeezed more tightly closed. He wasn't sure Bucky actually recognized him. He wasn't really sure if Bucky ever had after the serum. Except Bucky had jumped after him. He'd done exactly what Captain America couldn't, had thrown himself after Steve and grabbed him and breathed life back into him.

(Natasha had very slowly, haltingly explained it to him once. The sensation of having everything that made you ripped out, being unmade at your very core. He didn't understand, didn't believe quite the way she'd explained it. But Erskine's serum wasn't the way Hydra had preferred to do things. It didn't rip out and replace with what it wanted you to be. It just amped everything up, and Steve wasn't sure he'd ever liked what was in there. Erskine had been wrong about at least one thing: Steve was always selfish enough to take the chance to make himself bigger, better, stronger.)

"Don't be stupid." Bucky's voice, and it was so familiar, so easy, that Steve looked up at him again, his lips curving in a smile that faded the moment he saw Bucky's expression. The hand on the back of his neck tightened, and he swallowed again.

"Gonna do it then?" he asked, his voice steady and even. "Choke me and leave me here while you run?"

Bucky's fingers dug in hard enough that Steve was pretty sure they would leave bruises even on him. But it was still just across the back of Steve's neck, and while it would be easy for Bucky to snap it, Steve didn't think Bucky would. Or could.

Captain America was not so convinced.

"Can't outrun this forever, Buck," Steve said. "Come back with me."

"Don't."

And just that word cracked all composure that Steve had managed to hold onto. He shuddered and stepped back a little, turning his head—

Only to be wrenched right back to where he was, and this time, it was Bucky kissing him instead, Bucky taking what he needed. Steve moaned and opened up and kissed him back. There was no way for him not to, and this time, he wasn't sure who was saving whom. His hands clenched on the shirt Bucky wore— his shirt, Steve's shirt— and Bucky's touch slid down Steve's arm as his grip on Steve's neck loosened some.

That hurt worse than the hold had.

Before Steve could say anything about it though, Bucky pulled back, and he breathed very softly, "Steve," like he was just remembering who he was kissing, and Steve's eyes stayed closed for another moment before he looked up at Bucky and nodded.

"Yeah," he murmured, his own voice just as soft. "Yeah, it's me. Steve—"

"Rogers!"

He blinked, and he hesitated, his hand tightening on that shirt before he glanced back over his shoulder at Natasha. He felt Bucky move under his hands, and he looked back sharply at him. Bucky's breathing seemed to smooth out when he was holding Steve's gaze, and something in Steve shuddered at the thought.

"What are you doing, Steve?" she called, and he bit his lip before he finally turned around, his hand sliding down to hold onto Bucky's. He could feel a tremor there, but the metal was steady. Vibration, maybe, like what he felt in the shield when he took a bullet. The impression of a shudder more than the actual movement.

His fingers tightened on Bucky's hand.

"Natasha," he said, meeting her eyes steadily enough. "What are you... what are you doing here?"

He didn't dare let go of Bucky, but he could feel the way Bucky was pulling back, half a step, then another, getting distance between himself and Natasha.

"Making sure you're all right," she said. Her gaze slid over to Bucky, and instinctively, Steve stepped in between them. Bucky's hand pulled free in the movement, and he reached blindly behind him until he managed to get his hand on Bucky's belt. A flash of movement drew his eyes, something small and bright red in her hand.

It took his brain a few minutes to figure out what, exactly, it was.

"Oh," he breathed, staring at the camera she swung idly. Carelessly. "I uh... guess you were reminding people of privacy today?"

"It seemed like I needed to." Her eyes met his, and she raised an eyebrow as her head tipped, her hair falling to one side.

There was a jerk behind him, and he twisted around only to see that Bucky was gone. Faster than Steve would have been, and something in his chest twisted as he sighed.

"You going after him?"

"No," Steve finally said after a few minutes. He reached up to push his hair back from his face. "I... He's gotta come to me, I think."

"Your feral kitten."

Steve snorted as he looked over at her, and he caught the camera as it swung around again. "Only you," he said as he flipped it over and started pushing buttons, finding the symbol that he thought would turn on the screen and let him— ah, there, that was the way to let him flip through the pictures— "would call him a kitten."

And once, Bucky would have loved to hear that. It would have been the opening play in an attempt to convince the pretty redhead into his bed. She was just his type too.

Steve's fingers trembled a little as he slid them over the picture of Bucky and himself. It was strange, seeing it in a photograph instead of in a mirror.

"Oh, I don't know. You seem to have him purring," she countered.

He turned off the camera, looked up, and smiled just a little. "Yeah, well. There's history there."

"Isn't there always."


	2. The picture that's faded

The mirror mocked him from behind the closed door of the target’s closet, and he ignored it in favor of the other door-- the door that would bring that woman with the red hair into striking distance, and the man whose wings he’d ripped off, well.

(“Come back with me,” said sad blue and mussed gold. Said the target. Said the man he’d always known.)

He’d been invited, he thought, and he pushed the door open, just enough to allow him through.

Once it was open and he was out, out of that room that smelled and tasted and felt like _home_ , he could hear a man’s laughter and a woman’s low tones, smell food cooking.

Feel warmth.

No one said anything when he slipped into the kitchen, no one acknowledged him; but the two of them were highly trained, and one of them was…

Familiar.

Blood on snow.

Collateral damage.

And therefore assuming that they did not know he was there was… hardly strategic.

“So, what are we going to do about this?” the winged man said, not quite gesturing at him.

“We wait for Steve,” the woman said firmly. She was the handler then, and his eyes moved right over her form and back to the other, who was using a utensil to poke at something in a pan.

“That’s stupid,” the man said. “Hey, Bucky, right?”

(“Yes.”)

“No.”

“Ri-ight. You’re hungry. Here, eat.”

A plate, steaming and appetizing, was set before him, and then eating utensils. A glass of amber liquid.

He grabbed the glass first, and didn’t smash it and use the shards for blades.

(“Apple juice.”)

He wasn’t expecting it to be sweet, to be cold and tangy and wonderful, and the stranger in his memories wasn’t either, not exactly. He drank it down greedily, set the glass aside, took up a spoon.

The food was not meant to be eaten with a spoon. He stared at it.

“That’s right,” the man said. “Go slow, or you’ll get sick. You want more apple juice? I’ve also got orange and cranberry-peach and… well, Steve has a thing about juice, man, I figure we’ve got you covered.”

When he didn’t reply, the glass was returned anyway, apple juice again. He stared at the man.

“Sam? Natasha?” the target called, telegraphing his entrance.

Stupid, really. Reckless.

(“Steve.”)

“Hey, Steve,” the man said. Sam said. “Look who stopped by for dinner.”

His target froze in the doorway, staring at him, drinking him in the way he had that mirrored reflection last night.

His breath stuttered to a stop in his chest.

“Hey, Bucky,” his target said, all too casual. “You came.”

“You invited.” (“Me, punk.”)

The target smiled, brilliant blue and flashing gold, everything it had been before, last night, before-- _before_.

“Are you not hungry?” his target asked. “I can personally guarantee that Sam is an excellent cook.”  
He stared at the plate of food, at the knife next to it, and the fork. He reached for them, snatched his hands back at the last second, and grabbed the spoon instead.

There were vegetables on the side, and potatoes. He focused on that, and then on the flavor that exploded on his senses. He dropped the spoon and scowled at it.

“Too hot?” his target asked, taking a seat at the nearest chair.

He stared at the target.

“Steve, buddy,” Sam said, and his attention swivelled towards the stove where the other man was cooking still. “You want to explain why the Winter Soldier is eating dinner with us while wearing your shirt?”

He looked down at his shirt. It was comfortable, worn out. ARMY was stenciled across the front of it, and there was a hole near the hem.

It was his target’s shirt, but it … wasn’t.

“You can get those anywhere. Just because I have a couple--”

“There’s a hole in the hem and a stain on the shoulder from when you waded into that gang shooting yesterday afternoon.”

He twisted his head to look over the shoulder. Blood, rust-brown and dried, but blood. His target’s?

A quizzical glance in that direction yielded “It was just a graze. I’m fine now, see?” and the back of his neck, all smooth and pale and pristine.

His target’s blood.

“He was wearing that this afternoon, too,” the woman, Natasha, noted calmly.

“He, uh… He came last night.”

“And you gave him your dirty gang-shooting shirt?” Sam asked, something unrecognizable in his tone, a flash of something he couldn’t define behind his eyes.

_His_ target, he thought viciously, and he shot to his feet, shoving his target out of his own chair and imposing himself between them.

Everything stilled, the silence between breaths, the moment between deciding to squeeze the trigger and doing so, and then everything exploded.

Natasha came up with knives, hair and eyes like fire, ready to burn him, and Sam pulled out his weapon.

Steyr SPP.

A lot of firepower for a civilian.

He brought his own weapon--

His--

He dropped his left arm when the pain of his nerves and muscles impinged on his consciousness, which had never before happened in a combat situation.

Combat…

His target was wrapped around his back, hot and steady and…

“Steve,” he whispered.

Sam lowered his weapon, and Natasha abruptly had no knives.

“He recognizes you?” Sam asked, incredulous. “After the files Natasha found you, I thought for sure--”

“He’s _Bucky_ ,” his target said, firm and loud in his ear.

He was inexplicably relieved that at least one of them was sure.

“None of which,” Sam said, turning back to the stove, “Explains in any way why he’s wearing your filthy clothes.”

“He just, he grabbed the wrong one last night when he left,” his target said. “It wasn’t _anything_.”

“A man who’s tried to kill you twice, and nearly succeeded once, breaks into your room and changes shirts, only to come back the next day for a repeat performance, and it’s not anything?” Sam asked.

Steve-- his target-- _Steve_ sighed into his hair, a warm gust of breath that felt good and clean against his skin the way nothing else ever had.

“When you put it in those words--”

“The mission--” he said, and his voice _hurt_. To use. To listen to. (Bucky.) “Failed.”

“Yes,” the target said. “But that’s okay. There’s more to life than the mission.”

“Is there?” he said, even more Bucky this time. There was humor in his tone.

Humor-- Sam had been _amused_ , not prepared to eliminate.

He remembered that.

Or Bucky did.

“There’s… _anything_ ,” Steve said fervently.

“I thought it _wasn’t_ anything?” Natasha said. “Or was that the same sort of not anything you got up to on your run?”

“Look,” Steve said, sounding sterner, irritated. Steve-like.

Back-alleys and bullies and… a dame with auburn hair.

Not Natasha.

“I told you,” Steve said, and his arms shifted; they were looser now, but somehow more tangible at the same time. He leaned back against Steve’s chest and, despite how ridiculously reckless it was, shut his eyes, ignoring the rest of the room. “There’s history.”

“Shut up, punk,” Bucky mumbled, and then he was jerking free, and Bucky was quiet again and the words were gone, the only evidence of their existence the heat he could now see in the target’s face and the relief in his blue eyes.

He searched for the parts of him that were quietly pleased with that and grasped them tightly before they could freeze away from him again, leave him bereft of emotion.

Bereft of words.

“You’re hungry,” his target decided. “Come here; do you-- you need someone to cut up your steak?”

“Well, now, that’s just-- I _saw_ those knife wounds.”

“That was in combat,” Natasha said. “He-- that was in combat. Weapons are allowed in combat.”

He looked at her and tried to pull the words free from beneath the ice, but…

She smiled, and it was its own sort of knife, so he smiled back.

“Okay,” Sam said, and the target tugged his plate across the table to set in with the knife. “Him smiling at you is at least six times more terrifying than when he went for the kill there, a second ago. Just for the record.”

Natasha turned her knife on Sam, and gutted him so no words could come out for him either.

The target passed him back the plate, and he took up his spoon.

The flavor of the food was still overwhelming, almost bad, but the target was eating with relish, and he’d been so hungry.

“Next time I’ll make something a little blander,” Sam said, stealing his attention. (Kindness.) “It was always an adjustment. I’d crave anything but MREs and dfac slop, and then-- I couldn’t keep it down.” (Empathy.) Sam’s shoulder jerked in a shrug, and that made him remember the pain, but he was allowed to ignore that.

“We need a plan for what happens tomorrow,” Natasha said. He took another bite.

“If you’re uncomfortable with him, we can always--”

“The _cameras_ , Steve.”

“You got all the cameras,” his target said defensively.

She raised an eyebrow and he wondered if she had any facial expressions that weren’t armed or armament.

“Wait,” Sam said. “What happened?”

“Captain America interrupted his run this afternoon to make out with a dark-haired stranger on the street.”

“This is worse than that gang shooting,” Sam muttered, thrusting a bite of food violently into his own mouth.

“It’s not--”

“A dark-haired _man_.”

His target didn’t protest again.

(“Quit being such a punk!” “You like it, don’t deny--” “I liked that girl _more_.” “Come on, I’ll make it up to you!” “Just… wait ‘til we get inside, okay.” “I’ll wait for _you_.”)

The spoon was now slightly crumpled. He endured the use of his left arm long enough to smooth it out.

"Bucky, hey," Sam said, wiggling his fingers and focussing a gentle, concerned frown in his direction. "Are you okay?"

("What the hell do you _think_?")

He tilted his head. Turned toward the target.

"Look," Sam said, no longer gentle but still concerned. "I don't pretend to know what history you have with Bucky, but when I asked him if he was Bucky, he said he wasn't. You can't just-- okay, look. He's very alone right now, and you shouldn't be--"

Sam groaned.

He turned to look at his target; the only sure thing he had.

"No," he said, and his target smiled.

"Not going anywhere, Buck."

"Mirror," he said.

"You remember that much, then? The mirror, and the, the--"

"Beautiful," Bucky said reverently. It came out hoarse and flat and emotionless, the _thing_ that kept him from the words stripping all the meaning from the ones he could find.

Then, and he didn't need Bucky for this part. "Warm."

"Yeah, that's-- yeah, Bucky."

***

They made the sofa up as a bed; literally made it into a bed, pulling off the cushions and unfolding it and…

Then sheets and blankets and his target’s clothes to borrow, and then a shower, hot and awful where he wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ use his left arm to help, simply let it hang, limp, at his side.

He didn’t even attempt to put on the new shirt-- he’d have to be less Bucky, more... _nothing_ to ignore the pain to do so.

The others were all conspicuously absent when he returned to the bed they’d made for him, given that, as far as he could tell, this was the main living area for the house.

He lay down, and his muscles protested that movement, and it took him a moment to collect himself, remember that he was not about to be sent to sleep with the ice creeping in around him, only to wake up to strangers and more pain.

Even thinking that, even _knowing_ that the target would never hurt him, (“Steve could never hurt me,”) wasn’t enough, and his thoughts kept spiralling around one another, colliding and shattering and useless, until all noise in the house had ceased.

Until all was still and dark and too-warm.

He sat up.

His shoulder screamed.

He knew where the target slept, and he knew that was the best egress point, so he stood up. The air itself was too-warm in here, making him hunch in around himself, and his shoulder sent out another shock of pain protesting that.

Combat, he allowed, was far simpler.

Silence was his constant companion, by design. By choice, maybe, now, so that his target didn’t even look up until he shut the door behind him

He had a tablet in his hands, light reflecting on his face in eerie blues and whites, and he smiled at him.

He froze, the doorknob clenched in a sweating hand, the other hand useless or agonizing at his side, and focused on the gold of Steve’s hair.

He opened his mouth, but only a whimper came out.

Steve’s room was much cooler than the main room, than the kitchen or the shower.

It felt right; normal.

Steve patted the space on the bed, and when he sat down next to him, Steve coiled around him so that he didn’t need words.

“You know what’s cool about the future? The... the… now. The present.”

Bucky hummed contentedly. “No,” he whispered.

“These things? They’ll tell you everything you’ve ever dreamed of knowing, and everything else besides.”

Bucky tucked himself more fully into Steve’s embrace.

“Here, you’ll like this. Maybe you’ll… it’s okay if you don’t remember though.”

Steve flipped and tapped, too fast for him to really follow, even if he cared to, and then.

“The Phantom, Buck.”

“They still have that?” a stranger asked.

“Yeah. Here, look.”

He read the first panel, and then the second, and then his eyes slipped closed.

Steve’s hand stroked through his hair, then down over his shoulder, lingering slightly on the seam where flesh met metal, where the sensation of touch got scrambled up sideways and came out wrong, and then back to his hair again.

Despite…

Despite.

He slept.


	3. Hell's Rain

The pot wasn't boiling yet, and Natasha stood there, hip against the counter, as she looked down the galley-style kitchen toward the hallway. The walls were familiar, bare and plain, and even the molding was utilitarian more than decorative. It was there because people expected it to be.

Don't look at me, it whispered. I'm just a wall. Just a house.

It was precisely the sort of house she expected Sam to live in, and after their brief stint in it the first time, she wasn't surprised at all that Steve chose to move in and help pay Sam's mortgage. It was the sort of house Steve would pick for himself. Nondescript and unobtrusive.

She glanced back at the pot, and then picked up her phone as she pushed off the counter. The living room was empty— emptier than it was supposed to be, and that was for damn sure— and a quick look at Steve's door assured her that he was probably still awake. Or that he had finally passed out with the lights on. If he hadn't passed out last night, then he would tonight.

It was too bad his metabolism got rid of nearly any kind of drug she could get her hands on. She'd have otherwise long since made sure he slept.

She avoided both her emails and the internet browser on her phone, choosing instead to open up the texts that never went away. Strange, how there was more permanency on her phone than she'd had in her life for a very long time.

The phone made no noise as another text rolled in. One word, and Natasha smiled at the sight of it.

_Call?_

She considered her options for another moment, and then drifted back into the kitchen as she tapped just above the message so that she could call.

"Natasha."

"First ring," Natasha murmured, dragging a finger around the edge of the pot. It wasn't hot enough to burn her with her moving, but it would definitely start boiling soon. "The fires must be bad."

"I'm assuming then that you haven't turned on the news yet."

"You think I should turn it on before my coffee?" Natasha straightened up, turning to hoist herself onto the counter. She leaned back until her head was against the cabinets, and her eyes slid over to look at the closed blinds. Sam would open them when he got back from his run, and he'd give her his obviously well-rehearsed speech about how she should let some light into the house once in a while.

Her fingers twitched against the countertop.

"Well, no," Pepper admitted with a very slight laugh. "I would definitely recommend coffee first. Probably something Irish."

"Now, now, Pepper," Natasha murmured, and she reached out to lift one of the blinds so that she could peer outside, "you know I only drink vodka."

"Like water. I remember."

There was a long moment of silence, and Natasha dropped the blind back down as she listened to Pepper sigh.

"Why did you let them outside?"

And that was the question. From anyone else, Natasha would have taken offense, let herself be Natalia Romanova, Fury's favored operative and an assassin who was decidedly not responsible for anyone else's behavior.

She wasn't sure who she was now. Steve had long since taken Natalia from her, and she was still struggling to find an alias that fit who she had to be. Who he wanted her to be.

But this was Pepper, who had spent her entire career wrangling someone far more difficult than Steve Rogers.

Well. More difficult in some ways. Far easier in others.

It was her turn to sigh, but she only closed her eyes.

"They were never inside."

"Oh. Well. I can understand that. Tony has definitely blindsided me like that before."

Natasha tilted her head, and she knew exactly what Pepper was doing. At this point, she would have the phone on speaker, her office in lockdown, and her head in her hands. Her tone was the only cue Natasha needed to know that she was rubbing her temples.

"He has indeed," she said, and she looked over at the pot boiling on the stove. After a moment, she slid off the counter, turned off the burner, and poured it into the French press that she had prepped earlier. Fitting the lit onto the coffee pot, she set the empty pot back on the stove to dry. "And you always manage."

"Yeah, but I also didn't have Senators clamoring to make Tony a general. Or calling for him to be brought to justice for going AWOL."

"No, you just had them calling to force Tony to hand over the Iron Man suit," Natasha replied with a little smile. "And you let Tony handle that admirably, yes? Perhaps I should take a page from your book on how to handle Steve with this."

"He would manage to talk them into it even as he turned them down, and besides, they only think they want Steve as a general," Pepper said with a chuckle. "Not to mention, turning Steve loose on this topic is probably less…"

"Politic?"

"No one actually uses that word."

Natasha snorted loudly enough for Pepper to hear it, and she looked back toward the door. There were shadows moving across the bar of light at the bottom, and her smile faded. "Yes, well, I believe Mr. Rogers might, among many others."

"Doubtless. Listen, do you need me to come to DC? I can help with this."

"You have work there in New York," Natasha murmured.

"I always have contracts that need renewing in DC. I could simply put in a personal appearance to negotiate them this time."

Natasha could hear the clicking of keys in the background. Pepper was probably already arranging the plane. Her smile returned a little.

She still wasn't used to Pepper yet. Not really. She hadn't been angling to get help with this, hadn't been manipulating her into coming up with the idea on her own. For Pepper it was as simple as she thought Natasha needed help and would appear to offer it.

The only person Natasha had ever had that with was currently in Siberia somewhere on his self-imposed penance. She wasn't even sure if he'd survived the sudden change in power with SHIELD collapsing.

She swallowed.

Her voice was very even and easy when she finally said, "And is Mister Stark coming with you?"

Pepper's voice, on the other hand, was worlds sharper when she asked, "Do I need to bring Tony with me?"

Natasha turned to the coffee pot and pushed down the plunger before she poured her cup of coffee. She set the pot back down onto the counter and picked up her cup, headed into the living room, and sat down on the edge of the sleeper sofa before she replied, "There are a few things here that might be of interest to him."

"... Steve-related things? Because I have to say, he doesn't share his father's preoccupation with Captain America except—"

"To tear him down," Natasha said very softly. "I assumed as much. I've been following his public statements."

Those public statements had doubled or possibly even tripled since it became widely known that Captain America wasn't just some veteran who looked similar to the original. That was when everything had exploded, and so help her, she knew why they had done what they did to SHIELD, but she hated interacting with a world that had nearly as much information as she did.

"I have a hard time imagining you following Tony's Twitter account, Natasha," Pepper said, and she laughed a little as she spoke.

It was nice. But then, Pepper always sounded nice when she was laughing.

Natasha smiled without thinking about it, stood up, and set her coffee on the end table. Pulling her phone from her ear for just a second to check the time, she then started breaking down the bed, putting everything away before Sam got back from his run. The only saving grace here was that Sam left through the back door to run since she and Steve had rather unceremoniously moved in. He was always nervous about waking Steve up.

Personally, she would only bother being nervous about it if Steve ever actually slept.

"Yes, well, he filters the media for me," she told Pepper, neatly folding blankets and sheets and stacking them to one side.

"Ah, so you mean you only have to deal with him instead of all the idiots as well. I can understand that." For a moment, they were both quiet, and Natasha sipped her coffee before she folded the bed back into the couch.

She wasn't sure what Sam had been thinking. It was entirely too soft for nearly anyone to sleep on. There had never actually been a chance that the Winter Soldier would stay there.

Bucky. Steve would correct her to calling him Bucky, but...

She blew out a very soft breath, reaching up to rub her forehead before she put the cushions back on the couch and stacked the bedding in one corner.

"I'll bring Tony," Pepper said, and Natasha's eyes closed for a second.

"Thank you. Trust me. He will be sufficiently distracted."

"Oh, he better be because either way, you're keeping him while I work."

"DC won't know what hit it when you arrive," Natasha said, and her head turned toward the door before she added, "Text me when you land."

She hung up before Pepper could reply, and she finished off her coffee so that she was back in the kitchen when the front door opened. Her fingers twitched, and she grabbed an orange from the bowl on the counter so that when Sam rounded the corner, he didn't question the knife in her hand.

"Damn, Tash, you know, you could open the blinds once in a while. Let some actual light in the house instead of using the overheads." He went straight to the blinds, and when he passed her, she handed him half of the orange. He took it with only a quick glance at it— the same absent sort of look that Steve used when people handed him things— and then opened up the blinds.

She imagined that he'd insist on also opening the windows when the weather was good for it. She hoisted herself up onto the counter once more, poured a second cup of coffee, and sipped it as Sam bustled around, finding peanut butter and a banana and bread and who knew what else.

He was a very big fan of powders and bars, and she only paid attention when he was preparing something to give Steve or herself. This time though, it was a sandwich and his shake, same as every other morning.

She liked the feel of the sunlight on her skin, and her feet swung for just a second as she basked in the warmth. Then she turned her attention back to Sam, who was looking over at Steve's door.

"He still here?"

There was no question as to who 'he' was currently, and Natasha's lips quirked in a smile.

"Oh, I don't doubt it. Steve is the only thing familiar to him right now."

"Because he's Bucky Barnes or because Steve was the Winter Soldier's last mission?"

Her eyes narrowed on Sam until he looked back at her. Sometimes, she managed to forget that even if he wasn't an Avenger or even Avengers material exactly, he was just as clever. Insightful. She raised an eyebrow.

"Both," she finally said. "Neither. ... I don't assume to know what kind of mental state he's in, but given the rumors I've heard about the Winter Soldier, I imagine it's a sensitive one."

"Steve can't be sleeping with him," Sam said, his voice very soft. "He doesn't even know who he is. There's no way he's in any state for—"

"Now that," she murmured, "is something I would think Steve Rogers, if anyone, could actually help him with."

Sam's brow furrowed, and he took a few bites of his sandwich before Natasha finally yielded enough to add, "It wasn't Steve Rogers that anyone ever wanted to defrost, Sam."

Sam didn't get it for another couple of bites, and then his eyes widened as he half choked and had to get a glass of water to wash everything down. Then he managed, "You mean they've been pushing him to be Captain America before they let him adapt to anything.

"... And Steve is enough of a soldier that he did exactly what they ordered." Sam rubbed a hand over his face, sighing before he looked back toward the door. "Well, shit."

"That would sum it up." Natasha reached up to get another mug down, and she poured a little sugar and a little milk into it before she topped it off with coffee.

"I think I need a group for all of you," Sam muttered. "Superheroes anonymous."

"That would be a very boring group." Natasha set the newly prepared coffee by the sink, and after a heartbeat, she added the orange by it.

Sam smiled. "Only because you're all so close-mouthed about it. In a group of just you guys, you might be able to talk more freely."

"The only time we all were in a room together and not trying to kill each other, we were too busy eating to actually talk."

"So you all can bring a snack food to share. And sometimes, just sitting in companionable silence is better than being at home alone."

She raised an eyebrow at Sam. "Or trying to outrun your own thoughts?"

He didn't go still at the words, just grinned, wide and open and easy, like it cost him nothing to show that. "Or trying to outrun your own thoughts. Speaking of, have you heard the latest commentary on Steve's run that don't involve our new friend? Apparently, one of the papers referred to his morning jaunts across the city as a patrol."

Natasha considered that. With as often as Steve came back bloody from a fight because he spotted something he didn't agree with or helped stop a crime in progress, she could understand where they got that idea. She smiled, shrugged, and sipped her own coffee again.

"Whatever makes them sleep better."

"That's always what matters most, isn't it?"


	4. Reach the Truth (that lies)

Pepper had anticipated the need for privacy in going to look after Natasha’s current problem, so they’d booked a towncar under an assumed name, and now Tony was twitching every time the driver sped up or turned or slowed down, and she wasn’t sure it was actually worth it for the increased security.

Sometimes it was hard to know where his control issues lay, and sometimes it was glaringly obvious.

“Is this _Alexandria_?” Tony demanded suddenly, and she resisted the urge to grab his hand, because he was jumpy and now he was feeling like he’d been played, and in a normal human being grabbing hands was the correct response, but she had a superhero with an untreated anxiety disorder, so she simply clenched her fists in her skirt and pasted on her most submissive Ms. Potts smile.

“Yes, Tony. We have some business out here.”

“We have business in the _suburbs_?” he demanded with rising incredulity. She was waiting for the whine, the normalization, the return of Mr. Stark, because having gutted Tony, vulnerable and panicky, was not going to do Natasha any good.

Though, Natasha had asked… or, rather, not asked. Surely she of all people knew what she was getting into with that.

“Yes, Tony,” Pepper said, sighing like she was supposed to and waiting… waiting…

“But I’m allergic to suburbia. It’s a suburban _thing_ , it’s like, pollen only _suburban,_ and you should know this, you should--”

“That’s why you got Benadryl on the plane,” she said primly, raising an eyebrow at him. He stifled the sudden grin, but his eyes were sparkling and _present_ , so, crisis past.

“I thought that was to make me sleepy and pliant to your evil schemes.”

“Well, that too,” She said, casting a pointed glance out the window into suburban Alexandria.

Tony huffed out a noise that, she knew, was supposed to come across as a put upon sigh, but she had long since learned to interpret as amused surrender.

“So, why _are_ we going to suburban Alexandria?”

“Natasha called,” Pepper began, slow and diplomatic.

“I really doubt my going in on this is likely to _help_ the situation any.”

“She asked for you,” Pepper said.

“Uh-huh. And the part where Captain America is all righteous patriotism and loyalty and--”

“And you hate him on principle, yes, we know--”

“Isn’t something that made her hesitate in calling _me_ in for press fall out for him macking on some hot guy in public? I mean--”

“Well, there was your thing in the nineties--”

“Yes, but that hardly qualifies me for--”

“But I’m fairly certain she was looking for you expertise elsewhere.”

“What, I can teach him how to call the Defense Committee a bunch of--”

“Not that, either--”

“Because his choices are flag officer or prison for desertion in a time of war--”

“I don’t really think anyone would consider you an expert in--”

“And mine were ‘Hand over your _body_ ’ or ‘Defection to Sweden or New Zealand or somewhere else nice and peaceful and with no extradition agreements with the US’--”

“Did you even look at the pictures?” Pepper asked, derailing the conversation and leaving Tony looking pleased and proud. He was oddly supportive of her arguing with him, challenging him, moving in directions his analytical mind couldn’t predict.

“I saw a tiny glimpse of them as you were herding me through JFK. The guy was a looker under the homeless vet grime and combat boots. I do not understand the whole ‘Combat boots in any weather’ thing people do. If I had been in, I’d never wear combat boots again. Have you ever worn combat boots, Pep?”

“Well, it’s too late now, but-- Let me just say, I have some inkling of what might be needed.”

“Money,” Tony said decisively. “Which I would normally hold over Captain America’s head with screaming glee, but Natasha’s a completely different story in that she once stabbed me with a needle--”

“It was a jet injector and also allowed you to live long enough too--”

“And thus completely betrayed my trust--”

“She’s very trustworthy as long as you’ve given her reason to--”

“And now I am utterly terrified of--”

“As you well should be, Mr. Stark.”

“And would give her anything she asked for in order to never be stabbed again.”

Pepper hid her smile over that.

“You fired her,” Pepper said.

“I was _dying_ ; I didn’t actually mean it! She’s the world’s second-best PA, and you know it.”

Pepper couldn’t hide her laugh, and Tony’s triumphant smirk told her so.

The towncar came to a smooth stop in front of a rather nondescript home with a perfectly green lawn and a two-car garage.

“Ugh, look at this, this is disgusting. See that realty sign there? Three bedrooms, two and a half baths, this is like… this is like a sitcom or hell or something,” Tony started as the exited the car and Pepper lead the way to the front door.

“I bet they have a treadmill here, or, like, a backyard with a swingset, or--”

“You have both a treadmill and a swingset in the Tower, Tony,” she said as she reached up to rap on the door.

It swung open before she could so much as touch it, and Tony, well-- “A corporate gym and daycare center so do not-- Hey, handsome, how’s it hanging?”

Pepper suppressed her snicker and the gentleman who opened the door simply raised an eyebrow, without rising to the bait. He looked familiar enough for her to glance over at Tony, whose face was pale again, smile forced.

“Sam Wilson,” the man said, ushering them inside in lieu of a handshake, and Pepper remembered.

“The X7 program,” she said flatly, waylaying Tony’s next spat of verbal play.

Wilson shrugged and smiled. “Pretty sure that’s need to know, ma’am, so I’m just gonna go with ‘can neither confirm nor deny,’ if it’s all the same to you.”

“There was a flaw in the suspension!” Tony snapped angrily. “Anyone who looked over those specs should have seen--”

“It was an RPG,” Pepper said gently, for the hundredth time before turning to Wilson. “He likes to keep up with programs that resemble the armor in any manner. He’s…”

She shrugged and Tony took his energy and his self-loathing into the kitchen. She suppressed her frown, squared her shoulders, and followed.

Captain Rogers was staring at Tony with an expression born of relief and dismay, and she tried to smile reassuringly at him, but he didn’t see her behind Tony; that, she was used to.

“I’m here now,” Tony said. “Everyone can stop-slash-start panicking, whatever your preference. Why am I here?”

“I invited Pepper,” Natasha said from where she was lounging on the counter. “Your accompanying her is advantageous but not required.”

Tony snorted and went for the fridge, flinging it open and stuffing half his body inside.

“Tony,” she chided gently, but the cast of his posture meant she’d not be able to talk him down just yet, so she turned to Natasha.

“Ms. Rushman,” she greeted warmly.

Natasha’s lips quirked up. “Ms. Potts; you haven’t met Steve Rogers, I think, or…” The pause was telling.

Pepper was pretty sure vulnerability was not a look she liked on Natasha, but she had no idea what to do about it, so she kept her smile from slipping and took a step closer to her.

Abruptly, she was aware of a third man in the room, queerly silent among the blatant disapproval from Captain Rogers and the obnoxious rudeness from Tony and the forced politeness from Mr. Wilson.

He was clearly the man from the pictures, and he was staring at her. There was none of the assessment she had come to expect from men; not the threat assessment of the military and paramilitary in her life, not the sexual glances of most of the corporate world, not the blanket evaluation she got from Tony when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

The stare was just as blank as the rest of him, and she suppressed the urge to shiver in favor of moving still closer to Natasha.

“It will be _fine_ ,” she said in her firmest wishing-makes-it-so tone, and Natasha didn’t relax, so Pepper allowed herself to reach out, to touch her wrist ever so lightly. Natasha finally smiled at her.

“That’s hot,” Tony said. “I’d watch that. Is this a thing, Pep, or are you just as shocked as I am by this development, because can I say, I am hurt if it’s a thing that you have not told me. I like to know about your things, you know this.”

“Tony,” she said, more warning that she usually embedded in her tone, and he steered his verbal diatribe in another direction.

“Sam, wasn’t it? Can I just say, there is a great deal of juice in your fridge? I feel like you have a second fridge somewhere with things other than juice in it, and this is not in fact a fridge but a juice ba- ooh, peach aloe! Look, Pep, people _do_ drink peach aloe juice, I am not the only one who--”

“Steve likes juice,” Sam interjects, smiling a little. He was assessing, in his own way, and he wasn’t assessing _her_. “I have learned not to question it.”

“Lot of variety these days, eh, Doc Brown? Hmm, you’ll probably want to skip Ocean Spray; too much sugar, not enough… juice…”

Tony had caught sight of the other man.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he said. “Well, that’s-- something.”

“You know him?” Mr. Wilson asked.

“Nope,” Tony said, popping the p. “Heard a little bit, here and there. The old man was a fan.”

“I think they won’t kill each other,” Pepper said.

Natasha’s gaze went straight to Barnes, eyes wary.

“Has Tony got armor?”

Pepper wished she knew the answer to that. “He says he got rid of it.”

Natasha’s expression went soft and knowing and sweet just long enough for Pepper to catch it, but then she was gesturing to the back room.

“I want you to look at some of this,” she said.

 _This_ turned out to be a whole bevy of summons and subpoenas, both for Natasha, and, it looked like, for Captain Rogers.

“Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell was repealed,” Pepper said firmly, when she started sorting.

“Homosexual sex is still outlawed by the UCMJ,” Natasha murmured. “I’m half-certain this will overbalance our scales.”

Pepper glanced at a gala invitation and cast it aside. “Don’t send him out in public until we know where the tides will run,” she said, almost to herself, Mrs. Arbogast’s advice, coming in handy yet again.

“He’s going to have to go before the Senate eventually,” Pepper said. “But I think we may need to get someone to write a letter to the editor for the NYT under Rhodey’s name; put it out there that a man who was declared KIA and then spent _70 years_ dead has no obligation to return to his home unit, and that, in fact, by working in good faith for a government paramilitary organization, he cannot be considered AWOL.”

Natasha was staring at her.

“Also, he should have had an definite enlistment term; for the duration of hostilities, right? He wasn’t drafted, either, he was 4F.”

Natasha handed her a new stack. She flipped through it quickly: legally required, possibly beneficial, utterly pointless.

“You need him to show up on Thursday, it looks like.”

“Four days.” Natasha stated, calm and dismissive.

“We’ll prepare him. Stark has a lawyer on retainer in DC, we’ll bring him in, and you’ve already faced this particular firing squad. It _will_ be fine.”

“They’re going to bring up his sexuality.”

“That happens,” Pepper said, trying for a smile. “I mean, you and I though, we can give him the tools he’ll need.”

“There’s another thing.”

Pepper made an inquiring noise and resettled herself, eager audience instead of CEO.

“Barnes isn’t… right. Sam has tried to address that with Steve, with the…”

“Sex?”

Natasha made a noise of agreement. “It’s more than that. I know it, and I think, I _believe_ Sam recognizes it; Barnes is more himself if Steve is in the room, if Steve is _touching_ him, but.”

“What about Steve?” Pepper asked, because she had to, because she knew what ‘not right,’ meant when you were in a relationship with it. “Is he more himself when he’s in the same room as Barnes?”

“More himself?” Natasha asked. “He is always himself.”

Pepper let her disagreement show on her face, but didn’t voice it, because Natasha would know better than her, she supposed.

Or maybe she wouldn’t. How much was _Natasha_ herself, anyway?

“Barnes is going to be a problem anyway, and… I don’t know that I should tell you why. There-- there isn’t any proof. SHIELD never had any files on him, and HYDRA kept him paper only, and those records are gone. But if someone remembers-- If Steve says the wrong thing--”

“Would he?”

Natasha looked at her.

“He’s clever, right?” Pepper said. “I’ve never met him, and Tony’s… Tony. But he’s clever. I have practice with Tony’s Tonyness; I can read between the lines. Just tell him the stakes, and let him decide. That’s even assuming he doesn’t know the stakes.”

“Would you leave it up to Tony to decide?” Natasha asked, sounding tired and oh, so young.

“Always,” Pepper said. “Tony is a person, not an asset. And I may manipulate him, and I may push him, but he’s always fully cognizant of the fact that I am doing so, and if he weren’t, I wouldn’t. But yes, to answer your question. I can’t pretend to know what’s at stake here, but I would leave it up to Tony in a heartbeat.”

“How do you stand it?” Natasha asked, staring at the ‘legally obligated’ stack and not at Pepper.

“Which part?” Pepper asked, not because she couldn’t guess the answer, but because she wondered if Natasha actually knew what she was objecting to.

“Him. Seeing you. Knowing you.”

“Some days? Some days I don’t, and I call you, and I sit in a coffee shop and pretend to be a woman who can hide behind lipstick and designer clothes and startlingly high heels. But the rest of the time, I remind myself that being naked is worth it, because of who he is.

“And then there’s the other aspect. No one sees me the way he does. You do, I suppose, because it’s in your nature, but-- did you read that article, when I was on the cover of Forbes? The piece in Vogue was less superficial. Or whenever I have to face the Pentagon to keep Stark’s contracts-- ‘If you won’t build us weapons, why don’t you just let _him_ be CEO,’ and so on. I’m a figurehead for _his_ company to everyone but him, and… Sometimes the fact that he can see everything I am and everything I am not is… is the only thing I _have._ ”

Natasha nodded, and then the vulnerability was gone, erased like lines in the sand, and Pepper nodded back.

“You have until Thursday to prepare him for the first hearing, but. First thing is first; we need to draft a statement and get his approval of it. I’ll find someone to drop it with; I know a few people. Once we have a statement, the worst of the furor will calm down.”

“Yes,” Natasha said. “That. That is true.”

Pepper smiled, and Natasha pulled out clean paper and a pen. It was nice, reassuring, normal.

Tony’s world of spark and technology was one hers had intersected with for a very long time, but for PR releases, a pen and paper was the best thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was kind of... grasping when it came to DC geography. I was six when I left VA, and anyone who is better at it than me is welcome to tell me a better "suburban" NOVA city and I will happily change it.


	5. Coin Operated Boy

"Well, you heard the ladies," Tony said cheerfully, turning to the cabinets and not waiting for Sam to offer him a glass. Because the man had no sense of boundaries. Steve sighed as he pulled down a glass and got juice from the fridge— blueberry pomegranate with açaí berry (Steve had never heard of açaí berries before he'd found that, but he seemed to like the sort of things they were normally in)— and he poured a glass, drained it, and poured another before he looked back at the rest of them. His grin widened sharply.

"No killing each other," he clarified. "Juice?"

"It isn't yours to offer," Steve started, but Sam's hand landed on his shoulder.

"I'd love some, Mr. Stark," he said, and Tony snorted before he found another glass and set it and the bottle on the counter for Sam to pour his own.

"Tony. We don't need to play those games, do we?" He drifted over to Bucky, studying him more intently than Steve was really comfortable with, and after just a second, Steve reached out and caught Bucky's hand.

Bucky blinked and looked down at their hands, then back up at Steve, something flickered there, but before Steve could chase it, could press, Tony had leaned in closer.

"So we have Cap, Sam, Tony and..?"

"Bucky," Steve said sharply, and he wanted to tug Bucky back, get him away from Tony's scrutiny and flip commentary. There was nowhere to go though.

Story of his life now.

"Why are you even asking? You obviously knew who he was two minutes ago—"

"Correction: a very possessive Cap apparently." Tony shrugged as he leaned back and sipped his juice. He obviously had no intention of actually asking Steve's question, because he turned toward Sam and raised an eyebrow. "You deal with this a lot? Must be exhausting. Here. Living room. Give me some space to work."

"Work on what, exactly?" Steve's hand tightened on Bucky's, and he was relieved when Bucky finally shifted and pushed his fingers in between Steve's to hold back. It was a reaction of some kind, even if it wasn't the one that Steve had expected from Bucky. "I still don't know what you're here for, Tony—"

"Well, neither do I, but you invite a Stark for one of three things. You need money, or you need a really hot rich bastard on your arm for something, or you have something busted that you need fixed."

Tony leaned over and tapped his fingers on Bucky's metal arm, his eyes locked with Bucky's. "And of those three, I only see one thing that might be plausible."

"Oh, I don't know, Tony," Sam replied with a shrug. "Maybe Tasha just wants to take you with her next time she's in a congressional hearing. I hear you have some experience with that."

Tony grinned over his shoulder at them as he headed into the living room, pulling a small case of tools from somewhere on his person. Steve wasn't even sure where the case had fit in his clothes.

"Maybe, and let me tell you, I would look damn fine doing it— here, Buck— but somehow, I don't quite think that's it." He stuck one of the bits in between his teeth as he fit another one to the screwdriver, and he felt down the length of Bucky's metal arm before he finally settled on opening up a panel.

Bucky's other hand reached for Steve's again now that they were settled, and Steve held it back without a second thought, dropping down to sit beside him. Tony leaned in close, looking at the countless wires and gears and who knew what else was even in there.

Some kind of electricity, Steve decided with a wry smile.

Tony's eyes flicked up to his then, and they both chuckled before Tony set to work.

Sam watched them both with a raised eyebrow. "You two want to share the joke?" he said. "I didn't really think you were capable of smiling at each other."

Steve kept his eyes on Tony's hands. "There isn't much to smile about when he's here."

"Low blow, Cap," Tony said, and he held out a piece of the arm, presumably for Bucky to take from him. Bucky simply stared at it though, and Steve was the one who leaned over and took it. Bucky's hand was busy anyway, since Steve didn't plan to let go of it until Bucky pulled it away. "Maybe your innate patriotism just sucks all the fun out of the room."

"Maybe your cynicism triggers my patriotism."

"An automatic response against hostiles? Now, look here, you're supposed to rein that in around civilians, you know."

Sam cleared his throat and nodded toward the arm Tony had peeled another panel off of. "So what do you think here, Tony? Is it—"

"Busted," Bucky said, drawling out the word, tasting it, and Tony's eyes locked on him for a long moment before he focused on Steve.

Steve refused to look away from that gaze, no matter how intense, until Tony finally shrugged and looked back down. "Nah, not busted, Buck," he said.

Steve really wished he wasn't petty enough to hate Tony calling Bucky that.

"But I'm not entirely sure they knew what they were doing when they put this shit on you. Must've been new tech for them, and honestly, I think it needs some revamping. The neural interface seems a little off— not quite wired to match you, you know? It's all very Cold War and clumsy."

Bucky nodded very slowly, and his hand tightened on Steve's as he watched Tony move some of the wires inside.

"Can you feel that?"

Tony's voice was so low that Steve thought for a second that maybe he'd only imagined that Tony had spoken, but then Bucky nodded. Steve swallowed, trying to imagine the feel of that screwdriver lifting the insides of his own arm so that Tony could look at something underneath. His skin crawled.

"Hm. Got a bit of a death grip there on Cap, don't you?"

Steve blinked and glanced down, and sure enough, Bucky's hand was white-knuckled around his own. He hadn't even noticed, hadn't registered the mild pain that flared up when he looked at it. He swallowed, shrugged, and smiled for Bucky. Those eyes weren't quite anxious— Steve wasn't sure how much was actually processing right now and how much of this must have seemed like a truly terrible flashback— but Steve tried to be soothing and reassuring anyway.

"Hey, not like I mind. I'm probably the best choice for it right now anyway."

"Pretty sure if that were anyone else's hand, their bones would be matchsticks," Sam said.

"Lucky thing it's mine then, yeah, Buck?" Steve said with a grin, ignoring the way Bucky's hand spasmed on his. Purposely, he pulled it up to his mouth to brush his lips across the back of it, and he made sure to hold Bucky's gaze. "I don't break easy."

"Never did," Bucky replied, and for a moment, his cadence was so easy, so _right_ that Steve's heart twisted in his chest and he managed a little dry laugh that hurt almost more on the way out than the pain in his chest had.

"Right, even when I was little."

"Never did back down," Bucky agreed, and he looked back at Tony then, his eyes focusing even though Steve wasn't certain there was an actual emotion behind the expression. "Busted," he said again.

"Only word you're going to give me, man?" Tony retorted, and his fingers were careful as he pushed them in among the wires over there. Bucky jerked and Steve half rose off the couch before he caught himself.

He couldn't hurt Tony for this. For helping.

(He better be helping.)

"It's okay, Buck, here, focus on something else for me, yeah? You want to read a few more issues of the Phantom? We got a lot to catch up on, you know—"

"The Phantom? Why do you have him reading that? He could be reading your comics you know. They never stopped running while you were snoozing..."

A muscle in Steve's jaw tensed, and he flexed his free hand around the piece of Bucky's arm that he was still holding onto. "Yeah, but those weren't around when... you know, when we were reading comic books."

"So what, you're wanting him to relive the glory days? I don't know, Cap, might have been the best days of your life, but maybe they weren't the best of his—"

"I just want him thinking of something besides how many times they've probably done exactly this to him!"

Tony's eyes widened, and he pulled back from Bucky's arm, fingers sliding across the metal with a lingering touch that Steve had only ever seen him use on the suit. Bucky and Sam were completely still, watching the practically visible tension between Steve and Tony, until finally, Tony snorted. The sound was sharp and loud and completely shattered the moment.

"You think he's flashing back, Rogers? How can you be that—" He cut himself off and drew in a breath, and instead said, "He's in constant physical pain. If he's reliving anything, it's the sensation of having his damn arm cut off."

Bucky flinched slightly from the words, and Steve leaned in closer instinctively, staring openly at Tony.

"W-what do you mean?"

"This is a hack job. At best, this was some mad scientist tossing wires and parts at the human body in the hopes that something, somewhere would stick and actually work so that some equally insane bastard ordering it wouldn't lop off his little scientist head."

Steve swallowed at the thought of someone that desperate near Bucky, and his stomach churned. "And that doesn't count whatever they were doing to him before," he breathed.

Tony and Sam both snapped their attention to him at that, and he looked to Bucky only to meet the same almost blank look he'd been meeting since he woke up here. He bit his lip for just a second— bit too hard, but there was no bruise or blood to show for it— and then he looked back at Tony.

"When I... My first mission. Hydra had him and I don't... know what they were doing with him. They'd pulled him away from the rest of the group—"

"The Howling Commandos?" Tony asked, interrupting. He really wasn't anything like Howard, was he?

Steve nodded. "Yeah. They were the ones he'd been held captive with. They told me where to find him."

Tony looked back at the arm, at the wires and the metal that he was still absently stroking. It was the only touch to that arm that Bucky didn't seem to notice. Steve wondered if there was something wrong with the way it was— what had Tony said? 'Wired to him'?

"Could be related," Tony finally said with a sigh. "Might not. No way to know without getting a hold of some kind of records, and I can just imagine the sort of records—"

"Sam, in my desk. The middle drawer."

Sam hesitated, met Steve's eyes, and then nodded after a moment. "Okay."

"You have a file on this guy, and you didn't offer it right off the bat? What kind of hero are you, Cap? You have any idea how hard it is to reverse engineer this kind of thing?"

"I don't know what that means," Steve retorted. "But you think he's in pain, and he won't tell us—"

"Busted," Bucky murmured, and Steve looked at him. Bucky's eyes were on his arm, open to the air and to God and everybody.

He swallowed again. This time, the motion hurt.

"Or maybe he has been," Tony said softly.


	6. Be a good machine

"Busted," he whispered again, forcing only his flesh and blood hand to clench, not the other. He was remembering, now, just a little bit amid the pain, and it wasn't sun-gold and warm blue; it was rust brown and blood-red. It was was a man in a lab coat holding up crushed, bleeding fingers, and another man chiding, the words too distant to make out.

His target did not like the man with his hand there now, but.

But.

He did not want.

He wondered if the target would give him a new mission, and the image of this man shifted and warped to a boy, dry-eyed and hurt looking, though he had no visible injuries, and then take a breath, squeeze the trigger... 

Asphalt flying through the air.

_"A soldier never misses--"_

"Busted," he said again.

The man was reading a file, making humming sounds and twitching, all tells that he could exploit, weaknesses each one, but...

He did not mind weakness, did he?

"JARVIS," the man said, sliding a cell phone to the center of the coffee table, and a blue projection appeared in the center of the living room.

The man saw him looking and smiled, flash and gentleness in the same expression. He tapped his sunglasses. "Camera feeds and a hyper-sophisticated AI; the translation will take longer because it has to process in one of the supercomputers in Malibu; I've got server banks in DC for the easy stuff."

"Indeed, sir," a voice said, and it took him only a moment to pinpoint it as coming from the phone's loudspeaker, though his target tensed up. He could feel the way his pulse picked up from the death-grip he had on his hand, and a quick glance showed his eyes as dilated. "Would you like to continue stroking your ego, or would you prefer I tell you my preliminary conclusions?"

"Throw 'em at me, baby," the man said, smiling with amusement and pleasure. He was attached to the person on the other end of the phone call, that much was clear. Sometimes, if you truly needed your target to talk, breaking his loved ones' fingers worked better than breaking his own.

Affection was a weakness too; his target had a great deal of it.

All he'd need to do, he realized, to complete his mission, was kill Bucky Barnes.

For a brief, bright, moment, it appealed beyond any other course now available to him, and then, then he was...

_Falling--_

Bucky screamed.

Air... he sucked in a breath, and the world was silent, and then he let it all rush out, raw and ragged and agonizing.

"Bucky!" Steve said, and he was being kissed, rough and jagged and Steve's breath was in his lungs and he sobbed again, and then Steve was pulling away-- being pulled--

"Hey, Bucky," Tony said, appearing just in his view. "It's okay. Can you tell me where you are?"

"Steve..." he hissed, and his tongue felt dry and impossible. "Not. Lab?"

"Nope, living room," Tony said. "Suburbia."

"No one to hear the gunshot," Bucky said. "I-- sorry. I'm sorry. You're... not the mission."

Tony smiled at him, and it wasn't flash or gentle; it was sad and pained and sympathetic. "But I was, was I?"

A sad boy who wasn't crying. Asphalt flying.

"A soldier never misses," Bucky said.

"Well, I'm glad _that's_ not true."

"Hit what I aimed at," Bucky said, baring his teeth. He still couldn't get his breath. His cheeks were wet.

His left hand was clenched in an agonizing fist.

"What's _wrong_?" Steve demanded. "He was fine."

"He needs to be reprogrammed," Natasha said, and then someone somewhere made a ragged, animal noise, and Steve had hit her.

She leapt back, a half second too late, and the momentum of the blow slammed her into the wall.

Steve's eyes were glowing with fury, and... all he had to do was destroy Bucky.

There was that noise again, and then Tony was touching his flesh-and-blood hand, "Hey, Buck, how's a walk sound. Pepper?"

"I'll deal with this," Pepper said firmly, and Tony's hand slipped between his fingers.

Outside.

He was outside, and it was hot and humid and the sun was bleeding through the cracks in his memory, and Tony was walking next to him, his fingers looped loosely around Tony's.

"JARVIS?" Tony said when he noticed Bucky's attention on him.

"Mr. Barnes, Tony has asked me to inform you that you were experiencing what is known as a panic or anxiety attack. He would also like me to assure you that both you and Captain Rogers are quite safe in the company currently being kept. This fails, of course, to take into account Mr. Stark's proclivity for recklessness, but you seem well capable of handling unexpected recklessness."

"Thanks, J," Tony said. "You're a peach. Hey, contact that realtor for the house there?"

Bucky glanced at the house Tony had indicated, but he didn't know what Tony meant, so he just stared at the sign.

"I need the space," Tony said. "You said your arm was busted. You want me to fix it?"

"Steve--"

"Great guy, good with his fists, kinda self-righteous, not at all relevant to your arm, really."

Bucky shrugged, and it burned through him and he ignored it like he was supposed to.

"Up to you," Tony said. "But I'd hate to have spent $400,000 on a house in _suburbia_ for no good reason. Pepper hates when I do that."

"Yes," Bucky said, and the Winter Soldier grinned his bloody smile at the back of his mind. "Please."

"Ugh, no, manners, just... you're lucky I took a Benadryl or I'd be sneezing right now."

Bucky nodded and Tony nods back, and they loop slowly around the block, hand in hand.

He wished it were his target.

He was glad it wasn't Steve.

***

"Tasha!" Pepper cried, interposing her body between Steve and Natasha, though she knew full well Natasha could easily defend herslef here-- revenge herself.

She didn't want that, not now, not with everything else.

Tony was crouched in front of Bucky, eyes intent, shoulders squared in the way that Obie had always teased him about, calling it the trademark Stark stubbornness, the way she knew meant Tony had vowed to himself that he _would_ find the bugs in the system, _would_ produce a superior product. She'd never seen him direct that energy towards a person before (unless one counted JARVIS, which she did in many ways, but he wasn't flesh and blood and hormones like the broken man Tony was staring at now.)

"I'll deal with this," she told him.

Sam was between them and Steve now, and Natasha had one hand pressed flat against Pepper's back. Pepper took a deep breath and sought the calm that had served her so well for years of Tony's Tonyness. She pasted a bland smile across her features.

"Captain Rogers," she said. "What was that about? Because believe me when I say Natasha may be the only way you get to avoid spending the next ten years in 'Leavenworth' while the Army tries to recoup the scientific losses your death in the line of duty brought them."

"We are _not_ reprogramming Bucky."

"Then his persona will continue to disintegrate and reactions like the one we just saw will become more commonplace."

Pepper closed her eyes, blinked them back open after a moment, composure intact.

"Is there anyone we know who is both alive and on our side who can handle this?" Pepper asked, deliberately refusing to think about that dispassionate, matter-of-fact recital from Natasha. Refusing to think about the things she had been told in whispered late night phone calls, the things she now knew because the whole world knew them.

"Barton," Natasha said, clean and cool. Pepper had wondered about his absence, wondered if he'd survived this. "Coulson," she added thoughtfully.

"My phone," Pepper said, and Natasha reached across to take Pepper's wristlet from where she'd lain it when she'd come in.

Seeing it in Natasha's hands, black satin with the designer's name stitched in matte thread reminded her of the news footage.

"Keep that," Pepper said. "And we need to take you-- and Steve--" she added abruptly, thinking about hearings and debriefings-- he could _not_ show up in uniform, or he'd be proving their point for them, "shopping."

"Is that secure?" Steve demanded.

"More secure than anything SHIELD issued you has been for the last three weeks," Pepper replied tartly. "If you think Tony doesn't encrypt my communications, you've clearly no idea the sort of person he is."

"It's true," Natasha said. "The man's paranoia is impressive."

A compliment, from Natasha. Pepper felt her smile soften for a moment, turn genuine, before she regained control of it.

“I’ll get ice,” Pepper offered, standing up. It was a pretext, to offer Natasha privacy on her phone call, but Sam and Steve both followed her to the kitchen.

“I apologize,” Steve said, and she knew if she looked at him, he’d be staring sheepishly at his feet, but she wasn’t ready for that yet, so she breathed in deep, then out, then in again.

“I’m not the one you assaulted,” she replied, knowing even as she said it that it would come across as bitchy; perhaps unnecessarily so.

“Still, you shouldn’t have seen that,” Steve said. “I’ll be apologizing to Natasha for a week, you have my word.”

Pepper opened the freezer, and Sam came up silently behind her with a towel.

“Is Mr. Stark going to be okay with Bucky?” he asked.

“Mr. Stark knows what he’s doing,” she replied.

“Does he,” Sam murmured.

She raised an eyebrow at him and wondered whether he would sign an NDA that had nothing to do with the good of his country or his patriotic duty.

He held up his hands. “I work with vets who have PTSD,” he said. “I recognize the signs, is all.”

“Do me a favor and don’t tell _him_ that,” she said. once the ice pack was made, she had nothing to do with her hands. “To be honest, I’m surprised Captain Rogers isn’t more concerned.”

“Bucky’s free to come and go as he pleases,” Steve said defensively. “I wouldn’t dream of--”

“Not that,” Pepper said, holding up a hand to forestall further protest. “I was under the impression that you and Mr. Stark weren’t on the friendliest of terms.”

Steve nodded, then shook his head. “No offense, ma’am, but I get the impression he doesn’t _want_ me to like him.”

Pepper nodded.

“But he wouldn’t hurt Bucky,” Steve concluded, eyes fierce. “Anyone could see that.”

And Pepper had walked in on the tail end of it, Bucky’s arm open and exposed, blue lights in the air, showing what they knew about it; Tony’s eyes intense and unseeing, his best ‘engineering’ mode with too much going on in his head to leave room for anything else.

It hurt to love Tony.

She caught Steve’s eyes, held his gaze. He had no idea how much it hurt to love someone who wasn’t quite real, wasn’t on the same level as the rest of humankind.

She wondered who of the two of them she would end up empathizing with more, in the end.

(She doubted it would be Steve.)

Natasha came in and silently handed her wristlet back, and Pepper meant to tell her to keep it, she really did, but there was something in her eyes that made her shut up and silently offer the ice pack in return.

“Thank you,” Natasha said absently, tucking it against her face where Steve had hit her, before.

The front door opened, and she got the singular privilege of watching Steve Rogers visibly holding back from rushing to Bucky’s side. She let her lips quirk up in a way that only Natasha might interpret, and got a sidelong glance in response.

“So what I’m thinking,” Tony said, gesturing broadly but not touching Bucky, “Is that we ought to just take the damned thing off until I can figure out a way to improve the neural interface.”

Bucky’s flesh-and-blood hand went to his arm, fingers twitching visibly.

“Hurts.” he said plainly, after a second. “Busted.”

“Yes, that,” Tony replied, hunkering down a little to prod at Bucky’s wrist. A panel slid off easily, and Tony reached inside and tugged on a wire.

Bucky gasped, and Steve was suddenly next to them, hovering like an overprotective border collie.

“Yeah, so, can you even use the arm?”

Bucky shrugged one-sidedly, and Steve’s hand curled around the shoulder that he hadn’t moved.

Sam shook his head, slow and meaningful. “He only uses it when he’s-- when he thinks he’s got no choice. Neural interfacing, though? Should we find a neurologist?”

“No, I’ve been playing around with some stuff,” Tony said, all faux-casual.

“Really? I didn’t think SI was into that sort of stuff. Prosthetics and cochlear implants or whatever?”

Pepper didn’t hide her wince very well, and Tony looked an apology in her direction before he flexed his arm in a way that shouldn’t have been familiar.

The suit assembled around him-- not the chaotic, out of control rushing of the Mk. 42, but a steadier assembly; one that didn’t damage the walls.

Pepper sighed, and Natasha tucked herself close enough for comfort but not so close that she couldn’t pretend it was something else that drew her.

“I suspected,” she murmured.

Tony said-- “I’ve been experimenting with neural interfacing for a couple of months, now, I’m pretty much an expert.”

Pepper leaned lightly against Natasha, and Bucky surprised them all.

“Off.” he said firmly. Tony raised the front of his helmet.

“My armor or your arm?” he asked, a smile curling at the edges of his lips, a _familiar_ smile.

“Damn,” Natasha said, which meant she’d recognized it too.

“Both,” Bucky said less definitively.

The armor started disassembling itself immediately, and once it was gone, Tony grabbed his screwdriver and its bits and gently ushered Bucky to the couch.

“Well;” Pepper said, letting Natasha ease her back into the kitchen. “It could be worse-- he could view Bucky as a _person_ , not a project.”

“It could be problematic; he may start trying to protect Bucky from _Steve_.”

Pepper bit her lip and sighed.


End file.
